Pile fabric and method of making same



p 2,796,654 1C Patented June 25, 1957 PILE FABRIC AND METHOD OF MAKING SAME Alfred G. Ashcroft, Bronxville, N. Y., assignor to Mohasco Industries, Inc., a corporation of New York Application October 27, 1954, Serial No. 465,033

1 Claim. (Cl. 28-72) This invention relates to a loop pile fabric in which the pile yarn is in coiled form with the plies separated and interleaved, and to a method of making the same.

An object of the invention is to provide a loop pile fabric in which the pile loops have novel and improved characteristics.

Another object is to provide a tufted fabric in which the tufts are coiled and twisted in a novel manner.

Another object is to provide a novel and improved method for forming a tufted fabric of the above type.

Various other objects and advantages will be apparent as the nature of the invention is more fully disclosed.

The process of the present invention can be carried out on a standard tufting machine in which a row of needles is repeatedly inserted in a backing fabric and withdrawn therefiom to leave successive rows of pile loops which may or may not be of the same length, depending upon the tension applied to the yarn during the tufting operation.

The present invention provides for the pretreatment of the yarn in such a way that it is suited for use in such standard tufting apparatus but is capable of being deformed by subsequent treatment to form loops having the novel characteristics hereinafter set forth.

In one embodiment the yarn for tufting is composed of two or more plies which are plied together and given a hard ply twist, either in the same direction as the singles twist or in the reverse direction, and is permanently set in hard twisted condition. If the yarn is ply twisted in the same direction as the singles twist a hard tight yarn is produced whereas if the ply twist is in the reverse direction a somewhat softer, looser effect is obtained. The permanent set may be effected by standard techniques depending upon the material of the yarn and may be eifected while the yarn is held under straightening tension or while the yarn is relaxed and cockled, depending upon the effect desired.

The hard-twisted, permanently set yarn is now reverse twisted a sufiicient number of turns to pass the zero twist point and to form a loose twist in a reverse direction from the original ply twist. The final reverse twist may have for example about one-half of the number of turns of the original ply twist.

This reverse twisted yarn is now given a temporary set by known methods while held under straightening tension. In the case of wool and other yarns having similar characteristics such a temporary set may be given for example by controlled steaming in apparatus of the type disclosed in the copending application of Edward J. Masich and Phflip Miller Serial No. 189,772 filed October 12, 1950, now Patent No. 2,695,509.

The temporarily straight set, reverse twisted yarn is now fed to the needles of a tufting machine in the usual manner and is formed into pile loops as shown in the accompanying drawing in which a specific embodiment of the invention has been shown for purposes of illustration.

In the drawing:

Fig. l is a section of a tufted fabric showing the loops as formed by the tufting needles and before treatment;

Fig. 2 is a section through the same fabric showing the loops after treatment in accordance with this invention, the loops being shown in outline only for clarity; and

Fig. 3 is a detail view on a larger scale showing the form of the loops after treatment.

Referring to the drawing more in detail the yarn is pushed through a backing 10 which may be of a woven or knitted fabric or other type of backing material to form high loops 11 and low loops 12 depending upon the tension applied to the yarn during the tufting operation. The loops thus formed are of the usual configuration as the yarn is held in straight form by the temporary set which has been applied thereto.

After the fabric has been produced as shown in Fig. l the fabric is treated to remove the temporary set from the pile yarn. In the case of steam set yarn the set can be removed by steaming or wetting and drying in non-constrained state.

The removal of the temporary set permits the mom constrained yarn to be deformed due to the internal stresses produced by the reverse twisting. The plies separate and coil into the form of interleaved helices and the loops twist upon themselves to form a coiled and twisted loop with interleaved helices as indicated at 11a in Fig. 2. The short loops 12 tend to coil and twist in the same manner to form tightly twisted loops 12a as indicated in Fig. 2. The tightness of the twist of course depends upon the nature of the pretreatment, that is the number of turns of permanently set hard twist and the number of reverse turns, which may be varied in accordance with the characteristics desired for the final product. The relaxed coiled yarn possesses increased fullness whereas the tufts themselves are hard twisted about the vertical axis with the interleaved helices in the two legs intertwined as shown in Fig. 3 to produce a pebbly appearance.

It is to be understood of course that the loops of Fig. 1 may be cut to form cut tufts instead of loops in which case the legs of the cut tufts will tend to coil individually with the plies separated and forming interleaved helices, as shown for example in Mersereau Patent No. 2,662,558.

The invention may be applied to other temporarily set yarns which are capable of changing their form by treatment after fabrication to produce tufts having other novelty effects. The tufts may be all of the same length to produce a uniform surface appearance or they may be made of difierent length in accordance with a predetermined pattern.

Various other embodiments and adaptations will be apparent to a person skilled in the art.

What is claimed is:

The method of making a tufted fabric which comprises hard twisting a multi-ply yarn, permanently setting the same in hard twisted condition, reverse twisting said yarn a suflicient number of turns to pass the zero twist point and impart to loose twist in the opposite direction, tem- References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED ST ATES PATENTS Waite June 8, 1954 Andreae Nov. 22, 1932 Kahn June 26, 1945 Kahn Apr. 16, 1946 Stahl Sept. 7, 1948 Mersereau et al Dec. 15, 1953 Miller j Dec. 15, 1953 Bloch et al. May 11, 1954 Runton Nov. 30, 1954 

